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The Gorillapod and The Bottle Cap Tripod Review: Two Go-Anywhere Tripods

Mini tripods: Gorrillapod and the bottle-cap tripodYou saved up, read all the reviews, and bought a shiny new digital camera that’s barely as thick as a credit card. It’s awesome.

But what’s the use of your tiny marvel if you need to carry around a hulk of a tripod to take pictures at night? Or to use the self-timer?

Enter ingenius inventors and the magic of plastic.

We recently took a look at two super tiny tripods. One’s about as big as a couple fat markers, with bendable tentacles that grab onto anything. The other’s just twice the size of a bottle cap and turns any soda bottle into a camera stand.

Read Our Mini-Tripod Comparison 
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First things first, we should warn you that these little guys are made for point and shoot cameras. That means your telephoto and your expensive new SLR aren’t gonna work. Most other normal-people cameras will. As with all tripods, you’ll need a camera with a standard tripod socket. If you’re not sure if you have one, look at the bottom of your camera for a small screw hole.

The Gorillapod

Gorillapod in action
Gorillapod on wrist

Joby, the creator of the Gorillapod, has this to say about their tiny tripod: “lightweight, compact, bendable, Gorilla Fun!”

What exactly is Gorilla Fun? We had no idea, but we were counting the days until our very own box of Gorilla Fun arrived, and we were not disappointed!

What’s great about The Gorillapod: It’s made of plastic and it’s very light. Because each of its three arms are easily bendable, it can be used as a traditional tripod, molded to orient the camera in any direction, or attached to railings, tree branches, and more.

It took a little practice to bend the arms to fit different objects, but once we got the hang of it, it worked great. Our camera felt secure and steady almost anywhere.

What’s not so great about the Gorillapod: It’s small, but not as small as the Bottlecap tripod.

The Bottle Cap Tripod

Bottle Cap Tripod in action
Bottle Cap Tripod range of motion

Yodobashi brings you their sweet and small bottle cap tripods in six stylish colors. It’s not technically a tripod since it doesn’t have three legs, but we found that it kept our camera steady enough when used with bottles of various sizes.

The Bottle Cap Tripod attaches to your camera with a standard tripod socket. You then stick the other end on top of a bottle. Soda, beer, or anything with a small mouth will work–we were pleasantly surprised to find that the Bottle Cap’s soft rubber cup accomodates both threaded and threadless bottle tops. Heavier bottles and bottles with liquid will keep your camera extra stable.

Bonus feature: The Bottle Cap Tripod pivots and turns to allow you to find the right angle for your shots.

What’s great about the Bottle Cap Tripod: It’s small enough to stuff in your pocket or in a bag and forget about. It’s super light and fits on top of a wide range of bottles.

What’s not so great: You’ll need a bottle, and you still won’t be able to hang off trees, railings, and go all the other places the Gorillapod can.

In Summary…

Both The Gorrilapod and the Bottle Cap Tripod will come in handy the next time you need to take a timed group photo, or require steady placement for a long-exposure night shot.

If you like to pack light, go with the Bottle Cap Tripod. You’ll barely know it’s there, and it’ll come in handy when you most need it. And let’s be honest, how else can you convert a bottle of Chianti into a tripod in five seconds flat?

If you’d rather have more functionality and less flash, the choice is obvious, go Gorrila Fun. In fact, if we could pick only one, we’d go with the Gorrila. This little sucker won our hearts, and we think it’d make a genuinely useful addition to any photo arsenal.

Bottle Cap Tripod
shop.store.yahoo.com

The Gorillapod
www.joby.com


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